Assassin's Creed: Revelations Review- The Dying Embers

Recently, I've been wanting to close the Ezio chapter of my Assassin's Creed "book" since I've never gotten around to playing this when it came out. My preferred method of administration was the Nintendo Switch, which had both a positive and negative impact on my gameplay and graphical enjoyment, but did little to influence the story.

The story picks up some four years after the events of Brotherhood and stars the one and only Ezio Auditore, but this time in Constantinople. That is my first point of contention with the game: its setting has lost all of its Italian flair and identity and is now a mostly-brown conglomerate of unremarkable buildings. The streets are more claustrophobic, with less architecturally varied buildings that are unsatisfying to climb. This is a huge disappointment as admiring the incredible vistas was one of the high points of any Assassin's Creed game.

Gameplay

The gameplay largely remains the same as in Brotherhood. Fast combos and counter-based combat do most of the heavy lifting. "If it works, don't fix it" seems to have been the motto here, and indeed that saying seems to have rung true yet again. The only issue I find with the gameplay is the general lack of variety. Gone are the chases through town with the dagger-equipped sprinters. Also mostly gone are the brutes and spearmen (they exist, but are a rare sight and thus an unlikely opponent).
The game tries to innovate with a variety of explosive devices and with the hook blade. Throughout my playthrough, I have not used the bombs (call me old fashioned) and the main use of the hook blade was to cling onto buildings and ziplines, much less for combat. It feels like a worthy predecessor to the grappling hook from AC Syndicate, but much less broken and a little more fun.

Story

The most disappointing aspect of this game was undoubtedly the story. Both for how brief it is, but also how unambitious it proves to be. The previous entry in the series left on an absolute cliffhanger, and I was curious how it would develop in this one... but surprise: we get almost nothing.
Nearly nothing happens on the present-day front, and on the Ezio front, your only objective is to get 5 Massiaf keys and take them to the Monastery. That's literally it.
I don't know what the reason for such an unremarkable outing is but it's firmly one of the bad Assassin's Creed games for this reason alone.

Conclusion: Grade B

I won't drag this on any more than I need to... the game is an unremarkable entry in the franchise. It is certainly serviceable on its own, but I cannot exempt it from a comparison with its trilogy companions. It fully feels like development fatigue from releasing 3 games in 3 years, and I am glad they decided to move on before entirely destroying Ezio's legacy.

I would never have finished this if it was not my Switch game to play when I have a few free minutes and do not want to sit at the desk to play a "proper" game. It simply is not engaging enough to yank me from my other games during peak gaming time. That being said, the advantage of portability is paid for heavily in the graphics department: the Switch routinely struggles to reach even 540p, and occasionally the game has a very blocky look.